The Héma-Québec Donation Centre in Drummondville opens today!
Drummondville centre key to plasma self-sufficiency strategy
Montréal – Héma-Québec’s brand new donation centre in Drummondville is welcoming its first plasma donors today. This will be Héma-Québec’s 12th donation centre in Québec, and the first in the Centre-du-Québec region. The Héma-Québec Donation Centre in Drummondville will focus exclusively on plasma donations. Plasma is used to produce specialized medicines to treat patients with autoimmune diseases, immunodeficiencies, and neurological and hematological disorders.
“We’ve set ourselves some ambitious goals for plasma self-sufficiency, and we continue to take concrete actions to achieve them,” says Nathalie Fagnan, President and CEO of Héma-Québec. “Opening a 12th donor centre in Québec will bring us closer to fulfilling our mission to efficiently meet the need for blood products, particularly plasma, while reducing our reliance on foreign suppliers. It’s a step in the right direction!”
Drummondville: A natural fit
The city of Drummondville is in a vibrant, growing area, and it is strategically located between Québec City and Montréal, where Héma-Québec has its processing and distribution facilities—all of which makes it a prime location for a successful donation centre.
“The residents of Drummondville and the surrounding area believe in Héma-Québec’s mission,” says Luc Lévesque, Vice President of Blood Products and Mother’s Milk. “When we crunched the numbers, we found that hundreds of Drummondville-area locals have travelled to other cities to donate plasma— in addition to the many recurring donations made at our blood drives! We are counting on them to show that same enthusiasm for helping their fellow Quebecers and come donate plasma at their new local donation centre.”
The Drummondville centre is located at 175 Robert-Bernard Street, near exit 179 off Autoroute 20. The 4,000 sq. ft. centre will open its doors with eight donor chairs. The goal is to collect about 12,500 plasma donations there each year. Drummondville-area locals can continue donating blood at the many blood drives organized in the region throughout the year.
Donate plasma and share your health
Plasma is the liquid part of blood and carries red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Plasma is rich in proteins like immunoglobulin, which are the basic ingredients in a number of specialized medicines that thousands of people rely on for their survival and well-being. Plasma plays a vital role in treating a number of immunodeficiencies and neurological disorders. Héma-Québec currently distributes about 500,000 units of around 50 different specialized medicines to hospitals across Québec each year, and demand is only growing. The good news is that plasma can be donated every 6 days (unlike blood, which can only be donated every 56 days by men and every 84 days by women).
Héma-Québec set a goal to reach 42% self-sufficiency in intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) by 2026–2027. Héma-Québec’s immunoglobulin self-sufficiency currently stands at 31%, up from under 22% in 2019, but maintaining a balance between growing demand and donations remains a major challenge. Héma-Québec’s strategy aims to ensure the safety of our plasma supply so that plasma-derived specialized medicines can be provided to patients in need, right here in Québec. New donation centres, like the one in Drummondville, are a vital part of this strategy.
About Héma-Québec
Héma-Québec’s mission is to efficiently meet the Québec population’s needs for blood and other high-quality biological products of human origin. Héma-Québec has over 1,900 employees, more than 200,000 donors of blood, stem cells, mother’s milk and human tissues, as well as thousands of blood drive volunteers. Every year, Héma-Québec delivers nearly 800,000 biological products of human origin to Québec’s hospitals in order to meet patients’ needs.
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